Regulatory Alert: FAA Releases RFI on Space Infrastructure Development and Launch Corridors
August 21, 2026
This afternoon, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released a request for information (RFI) to solicit feedback from the public on the siting of new spaceports (more formally known as launch and reentry sites) and the development and use of prioritized airspace for “critical space launch corridors.” The FAA RFI comes one day after President Trump issued his “National Space Transportation Policy” (NSTP), which outlines a series of actions for his administration to take to strengthen space transportation infrastructure and related capabilities.
Over the years, AAAE has engaged with the FAA and the aviation and commercial space community to develop policies that mitigate the impact of space launches and reentries on the air transportation system, particularly airport operations. This has been a recurring issue since the mid-2010s when the cadence of commercial space operations began to significantly increase. We strongly urge you to review the FAA RFI and consider responding if your airport is currently experiencing impacts from these operations or may be located near a potential launch or reentry site in the future.
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) issued a press release that includes the FAA RFI. Once the RFI is published in the Federal Register, the public will have 60 days to submit feedback to the agency. We expect the comment deadline to be in late October. (Note that the FAA RFI linked to in the DOT press release is defective and many of the questions are missing from the document, an issue which we have flagged with FAA.) AAAE will be working with our members and industry partners in the aviation industry to respond to the FAA RFI.
Trump Administration’s National Space Transportation Policy. Yesterday, President Trump issued a memorandum that outlines the administration’s “National Space Transportation Policy.” One key component of the policy is to establish and maintain sufficient space launch and reentry infrastructure to support more than 1,000 launches and reentries each year by 2030. For perspective and according to the DOT, the United States was responsible for 217 of the 329 commercial space launches worldwide in 2025.
Under the policy, President Trump directed the DOT to take three specific actions: (a) identify potential locations for additional launch facilities and targeted development or improvement of launch infrastructure; (b) implement a plan to integrate space launch and reentry management into airspace and traffic control modernization efforts; and (c) designate priority airspace for critical space launch corridors.
FAA RFI on Spaceports and Launch Corridors. The purpose of the FAA RFI is to help DOT implement its obligations under the NSTP by soliciting public and industry feedback on two elements of the policy: (1) the siting of new spaceports and (2) the development and use of priority airspace for critical space launch corridors.
- Siting of New Spaceports: The FAA has requested input regarding potential locations for new spaceports and noted that such spaceports would “ideally” be viable locations to complement or augment the many operations that already occur at one of four existing facilities: Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Kennedy Space Center, Vandenberg Space Force Base, and the NASA Wallops Flight Facility. In addition, the FAA solicited comments on, among other things, how to make better use of existing launch and reentry sites and potential funding mechanisms, including opportunities for public-private partnerships in spaceport infrastructure development.
- Space Launch Corridors: The FAA has requested input regarding the considerations for developing priority airspace for critical space launch corridors, the ideal requisites for priority airspace, and concepts for differentiating standard airspace used for commercial space activities from priority airspace. We expect that the corridor concept may be controversial because it shares similarities with concepts considered by the commercial space and aviation industries in 2019 through the Airspace Access Priorities Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) (in which AAAE participated). In that final report, the ARC agreed “prioritization was not the most effective way to manage competing needs for NAS access, but that optimization is preferred.”
